This year, a bunch of churches produced a Living Bethlehem over the weekend. It was much more than a stable scene with live animals and actual humans playing Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, angels, shepherds, and wise men. No, this was a full scale town with people dancing in front of the city gates, Mary riding an actual donkey, wise men coming in on camels and being carried in on a chaise. It was a full-on production of the story; start to finish. It was fairly impressive; but so crowded you couldn't really see anything at all. I hope they do this next year, and that they can figure out a way to handle some of these kinks, because it was incredible detailed and involved. I was super impressed.
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| Entrance to the town of Bethlehem. |
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| I really wanted to ride the camel. And the celebrants out front were doing a good job of keeping the crowd entertained. |
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| Announcing that the proceedings of registering to pay your taxes would be orderly and that any ruckus would be suitably punished. I think they were talking to us in the crowd of viewers and telling us to behave or get out. |
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| Sheep and shepards! |
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| The roman guards costumes were really authentic looking. |
1 comment:
There is a church in Salinas that does this same thing every year... down to the Roman soldiers on horseback "hassling" the "rabble" standing in line waiting to get in. They do it Th-Su for two weeks I think. It's pretty darn cool. We went when I was pregnant with James... I actually had contractions getting closer and closer while we were there.... until we got about 2/3 through and they stopped not to return for another week. I totally want to go back and see it again when I'm not being distracted! LOL!
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